1. Field of the Invention
An electrical power control system for use with a recreational vehicle to selectively control power thereto from a either utility power source or a generator power source.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various types of metering equipment are available to measure, control and display the operating conditions and parameters of electrical sources. Unfortunately such equipment does not generally provide unified operation or important electrical functions to operate RVs reliably and easily. For example, the AC coil noise is very annoying, especially if the products are mounted behind the bedroom cabinets or under the bed. Contact jitter caused by marginal voltage often results in damaging contactor failure. Contactor failure can cause a potentially hazardous open neutral condition. Mechanical interlocks are commonly used to prevent malfunctioning contactors from causing multiple contactors from being engaged simultaneously. Add-on surge protectors are commonly used but only connect to the source wiring or a single point of protection.
Existing equipment includes measurement and controlling circuitry directly connected to the source wiring without isolation. This may allow faulty wiring hazards to be connected directly to system controls and monitors.
Load management is generally operated with voltage or load currents but do not account for source phases. Most voltage measurement and monitoring equipment uses rectified average voltage measurements and does not work on modified sine or square wave sources such as solid state generators, inverters and uninterruptible power supplies with desired accuracy.
Examples of the prior art are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,385 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,472.